The Court of Appeal in Abuja has affirmed the election of Nasarawa State Governor, Abdullahi Sule, overturning the decision of the Nasarawa State Election Petitions Tribunal that had sacked him from office.
Delivering judgment, the three-member panel led by Justice Uchechukwu Onyemenam, held that the Tribunal was legally bound to act on witness statements filed along with the petition or front-loaded within 21 days stipulated by law.
The Appellate Court held that the Tribunal, led by Ezekiel Ajayi, acted in grave error in using witness statements on oath not front-loaded as required by law to arrive at the unjust conclusion of nullifying the election of the governor.
The Court held that no petition can lawfully be amended outside the 21 days allowed by law as wrongly done by the Tribunal.
According to the Court of Appeal, the Tribunal denied the governor a fair hearing by not considering and making findings on the issues of jurisdiction raised at the hearing of the petition.
Since the statements used by the Tribunal to sack the Governor were not front-loaded in compliance with the law, the court held that the statements were the product of illegality with no probate value for a law Court to act upon.
The Court also dismissed the over-voting issues used to annul the election, adding that allegations were not established by law.
Recall that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), had declared Sule the winner of the governorship election on the grounds that he polled a total of 347,209 votes to defeat his closest opponent David Emmanuel Ombugadu who secured 283,016 votes.
However, in a split decision on October 2, the tribunal nullified Sule’s election and upheld Ombugadu as the winner.